Skip to content

Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Gets Peppered with NFL Concussion Lawsuits

2012 March 22

Updated: 3/26/12

In the past six days, nine lawsuits have been filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Sol Weiss and Larry Coben of Anapol Schwartz filed eight of the nine lawsuits. The lawsuits are factually similar to the others, but they are not mass torts. The lawsuits name only the former player and his wife (e.g. Lincoln Kennedy and Patricia Kennedy v. NFL) The other seven include brothers Sydney and Kerry Justin, Pete Koch, Scott Player, Jay Taylor, George Adams and David Krieg.

The ninth lawsuit, filed by the Locks Law Firm on March 21st, is a class action and includes three former players, Frank LeMaster, Michael Evans and Reggie Wilkes. The plaintiffs, all Pennsylvania citizens, seek to represent a Class of former players that are currently Pennsylvania citizens. The lawsuit seeks medical monitoring for the Class, and it’s separated into three subclasses: concussion subclass, non-concussion subclass, and symptomatic subclass. An additional lawsuit was filed by the Locks Law Firm on March 21st in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Camden County. It is exactly like the LeMaster complaint, except it seeks to represent a Class of of former players that are currently New Jersey Citizens. It includes former players Michael Haddix, Greg Brown, and Larry Watkins.

The Non-Concussion Subclass includes all members of the Class who are “asymptomatic and did not sustain any concussions while playing football in the NFL….”

The Symptomatic Subclass includes all members of the Class who “suffered and/or presently suffer from conditions and/or symptoms as a result of one or more concussions…from their playing football in the NFL.”

The Concussion Subclass includes all members of the Class who “are asymptomatic but sustained one or more concussions…while playing football in the NFL.”

There are now 49 concussion lawsuits pending against the NFL, and more than 850 former players named as plaintiffs.

The NFL has 30 days to file a Notice of Removal, and to request that these suits be consolidated with the other thirty plus lawsuits currently in multidistrict litigation (MDL) in front of Judge Brody.

A similar jurisdictional battle is getting ready to take place in Dave Duerson’s wrongful death lawsuit. In the next seven days, the NFL will file a Notice of Removal, seeking to have Duerson’s lawsuit transferred to Philadelphia to join the MDL. Duerson’s lawyer plans to challenge the NFL’s Notice and file a Motion to Remand to send the lawsuit back to Cook County Illinois State Court. A California Federal Judge, Manuel Real, decided a similar issue in December and denied the players’ attempt to send the case back to state court.

No comments yet

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.